IoT

Thoughtwire: Improving Tenant Experience and ROI

How People-Focused, Process-Driven IoT for Smart Buildings is Improving ROI and Tenant Experiences

By: Mike Monteith, CEO, ThoughtWire

The preeminent truth for owners and managers of commercial buildings today may be this: If you’re not collecting, storing, using and learning from data, you’re losing your competitive edge. The Internet of Things (IoT) has been hailed by many as revolutionary for unlocking greater value from smart initiatives and is broadly understood as a critical component of information for smart buildings. However, a 451 report found that a significant 41 percent of companies cite IoT’s lack of perceived ROI as a barrier to adoption.

But the IoT is not an island. It’s one component. In the absence of a comprehensive toolset for managing buildings, the IoT is useless.

A process-driven, people-focused approach to IoT orchestration with Operations Performance Management (OPM) allows the true potential of IoT to be unlocked. According to an infographic published by PSFK, only 0.06 percent of all devices that could potentially leverage IoT are actually doing so; this makes the remaining 99.94 percent available for optimization. OPM puts the power in the hands of the people, empowering workers to take action based on context-rich and real-time information about their smart environment. It enables the real-time orchestration of people, systems and things. By empowering people through operational intelligence and predictive self-tuning of their assets and processes, OPM drives better outcomes for the business.

This people-centric approach seeks to arm the workforce with the knowledge to take real-time action that truly transforms operations and more importantly drives real business outcomes. Much of the operational knowledge about the ins and outs of commercial buildings has been retained in the minds of property managers and operators for decades. However, with as many as 10,000 baby boomers retiring per day, this “tribal knowledge” could soon be lost. New advances need to be made to arm incoming property managers with the information they will need to efficiently and effectively run building operations as they exist today and into the future. Furthermore, property managers must be able to quickly and easily adapt as smart building owners and operators introduce new IoT devices and systems which require further optimization and orchestration as they are integrated into existing systems.

OPM solutions like ThoughtWire’s smart building application suite, which leverages a building digital twin, can help building owners and operators give property management teams full visibility and control over building operations. Unlike the stagnant analytics confined to dashboards or simple physical to digital models of buildings, ThoughtWire’s digital twin is a true contextual representation of the past, present and future state of the building and how behavior inside the building impacts operations. The twin is exposed to the user through applications like PrecisionHub and @Work, giving them easily navigable and usable tools needed to “learn” buildings quickly and easily – ensuring a seamless and frictionless sharing of knowledge with easy-to-understand, actionable data insights available at their fingertips. Alerts and alarms are targeted and prioritized based on team members’ roles, responsibilities and time-sensitive needs. OPM provides only the details and alerts needed to act – alleviating any potential feelings of being overwhelmed by non-directed or overly excessive alarms.

Effective IoT orchestration can provide significant results – including reduced operational costs, improved asset value and a better tenant experience. For example, using OPM applications backed by digital twin modeling, one 900-000 square-foot commercial building working with ThoughtWire is projected to realize a 344 percent internal rate of return over a five-year period.

New mapping and wayfinding capabilities like MappedIn’s recent integration with ThoughtWire are further advancing IoT orchestration via OPM. This enables property managers to help direct providers and vendors, such as Internet cable companies and energy services, to areas of an office space or living environment that might need upgrades or maintenance and repair, for instance. It also helps them monitor and map the areas of the building that may be in need of or taking up the most energy (e.g., heat, cooling, lighting, etc.) for further oversight and control over capital and operational expenses.

Utilizing these unified, context-rich orchestrations optimizes operations and improves workflows, ultimately saving both time and money. By including people in the development and deployment of OPM, while keeping outcomes top of mind, experiences and efficiencies are improved – for consumers and facility management staff. This enables faster, better results for IoT deployments in built environments.